Volume 2 / Part 1 — ILLUSTRATIONS (continued 5)

"I thinks over old times sometimes by myself. Didn't know what freedom was till we was free and didn't hardly know then.

"Well, it's been a long time. All the Brewsters and the Bransons dead and I'm still here—blind. Been blind eight years."

Waters Brooks 1814 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Ark. Retired railroad worker, No. Pac. 75

[TR: Information moved from bottom of each page.]

[HW: A Railroad Work History]

I was only three years old when peace (1865) was declared. I was born in 1862. Peace was declared in 1865. I remember seeing plenty of men that they said the white folks never whipped. I remember seeing plenty of men that they said bought their own freedom.

I remember a woman that they said fought with the overseer for a whole day and stripped him naked as the day he was born. She was Nancy Ward. Her owner was named Billie Ward. He had an overseer named Roper. Her husband ran away from the white folks and stayed three years. He was in the Bayou in a boat and the bottom dropped out of it. He climbed a tree and hollered for someone to tel his master to come and get him if he wanted him.

FATHER

My father's master was John T. Williams. He went into the army—the rebel army—and taken my father with him. I don't know how long my father stayed in the army but I was only 6 months old when he died. He had some kind of stomach trouble and died a natural death.

MOTHER

My mother and father both belonged to Joe Ward at first but Ward died and his widow married Williams. My mother told me and not only told me but showed me knots across her shoulder where they whipped her from seven in the morning until nine at night. She went into the smoke house to get some meat and they closed in on her and shut the door and strung her up by her hands (her arms were crossed and a rope run from her wrists to the hook in the ceiling on which meat was hung). There were three of them. One would whip until he was tired, and then the other would take it up.

Some years after she got that whipping, her master's child was down to the bayou playing in the water. She told the child to stop playing in the water, and it did not. Instead it threw dirt into the water that had the bluing in it. Then she took the child and threw it into the Bayou. Some way or other the child managed to scramble out. When the child's aunt herd it from the child, she questioned my mother and asked her if she did it. My mother told her "Yes". Then she said. "Well what do you want to own it for? Don't you know if they find it out they will kill you?"

HOW FREEDOM CAME

My mother said that an old white man came through the quarters one morning and said that they were all free—that they could go away or stay where they were or do what they wanted to. If you will go there, I can send you to an old man eighty-six years old who was in General Sherman's army. He came from Mississippi. I don't know where he was a slave. But he can tell you when peace was declared aad what they said and everything.

WHAT THE SLAVES EXPECTED

The slaves were not expecting much but they were expecting more than they got. I am not telling you anything I read in history but I have heard that there was a bounty in the treasury for the ex-slaves, and them alone. And some reason or other they did not pay it off, but the time was coming when they would pay it off. And every man or woman living that was born a slave would benefit from it. They say that Abraham Lincoln principally was killed because he was going to pay this money to the ex-slaves end before they would permit it they killed him. Old man White who lives out in the west part of town was an agent for some Senator who was in Washington, and he charged a dime and took your name and age and the place where you lived.

KU KLUX KLAN

They called the K.K.K. "White Cape". Right there in my neighborhood, there was a colered man who hadn't long come in. The colored man was late coming into the lot to get the mule for the white man and woman he was working for. The white man hit him. The Negro knocked the white man down and was going to kill him when the white man begged him off, telling him that he wouldn't let anybody else hurt him. He (the Negro) went on off and never came back. That night there were two hundred White Caps looking for him but they didn't find him.

Another man got into an argument. They went to work and it started to rain. The Negro thought that they would stop working because of the rain; so he started home. The man he was working for met him and asked him where he was going. When he told him he started to hit him with the butt end of the gun he was wearing. The Negro knocked his gun up, took it away from him, and drawed down and started to kill him when another Negro knocked the gun up, and saved the white man's life. But the Nigger might as well have killed him because that night seventy-five masked men hunted him. He was hid away by his friends until he got a chance to get away. This man was named Matthew Collins.

There was another case. This was a political one. The colored man wanted to run for representative of some kind. He had been stump speaking. He lived on a white man's place, and the owner came to him and told him he had better get away because a mob was coming after him (not just K.K.K.). He told his wife to go away and stay with his brother but she wouldn't. He hid himself in a trunk and his wife was under the floor with his two children. The white men fired into the house and that didn't do anything, so they throwed a ball of fire into the house and burned his wife and children. Then he rose up and came out of the trunk and hollered, "Look out I'm coming", and he fired a load of buck shot and tore one man nearly in two and ran away in the confusion. The next day he went to the man on whose place he lived, but he told him he couldn't do anything about it.

Another man by the name of Bob Sawyer had a farm near my home and another farm down near Maginty's place. He worked the ????[TR: Illegible] Niggers from one farm to the other.

His boy would ride in front with a rifle and he would be in the rear with a big gun swinging down from his hip. There wae one Nigger who got out and went down to Alexandria (Louisiana). He wrote to the officers and they caught the Nigger and put him into the stocks and brought him back, and the man hadn't done a thing but run away. After that they worked him with a chain holding his legs together so that he could only make short steps.

They had an old white man who worked there and they treated him so mean he ran away and left his wife. They treated the poor whites about as bad as they treated the colored.

If Bob met a Negro carrying cotton to the Gin, he would ask "Whose cotton is that?", and if the Nigger said it was some white man's, he would let him alone. But if he said. "Mine", Bob would tell him to take it to some Gin where he wanted it taken. He was the kind of man that if you seen him first, you wouldn't meet him.

One night he slipped up on a Nigger man that had left his place and killed him as he sat at supper. I had an aunt with five or six children who worker with him. He married my young Mistress after I was freed.

I saw him do this. The white folks had a funeral at the church down there one Sunday. He came along and young Billie Ward (white man) was sitting in a buggy driving with his wife. When he saw Billie, he jumped down out of his buggy and horse-whipped him until he ran away. All the while, Sawyer's mother-in-law was sitting in his buggy calling out, "Shoot him, Bob, shoot him." this was because Billie and another man had done some talk about Bob.

OCCUPATIONS

I came to Brinkley, Arkansas, March 4, 1900, and have been in Arkansas ever since. Why I came, the postmaster where I was rented farm on which I was farming. In March he put hands in my field to pick my cotton. All that was in the field was mine. I knew that I couldn't do anything about it so I left. A couple of years before that I rented five acres of land from him for three dollars as acre (verbal agreement) sowed it down in cotton. It done so well I made five bales of cotton on it. He saw the prospects were so good that he went to the man who furnished me supplies and told him that I had agreed to do my work on a third and fourth (one-third of the seed and one-fourth of the cotton to go to the owner). He get this although if he had stuck to the agreement he would not have gotten but fifteen dollars. So he dealt me a blow there, but I got over it.

Before this I had bought a piece of timber land in Moorehouse parish (Louisiana) and was expecting to get the money to finish paying for it from my cotton. The cost was $100.00. So when he put hands in my field, it made me mad, and I left. (Brooks would have lost most of his cotton if the hands had picked it.)

At Brinkley, I farmed on halves with Will Carter, one of the richest men in Monroe County (Arkansas). I done $17.50 worth of work for Carter and he paid me for it. Then he turned around and charged me up with it. When we came to settle up, we couldn't settle. So finally, he said, "Figures don't lie." and I said, "No, figures don't lie but men do." When I sed that I stepped out and didn't get scared until I was half way home. But nobody did anything. He sent for me but I wouldn't go back because I knew what he was doing.

After that I went to Wheatley, Arkansas, about five miles west of Brinkley. I made a crop for Goldberg. Jake Readus was Goldberg's agent. The folks had told the white folks I wasn't no account, so I couldn't get nothing only just a little fat meat and bread, and I got as naked as a jaybird. About the last part of August, when I had done laid by and everything. Jake Readus came by and told me what the Niggers had said and said he knowed it was a lie because I had the best crop on the place.

When Goldberg went to pay me off, he told Dr. Beauregard to come and get his money. I said. "You give me my money; I pay my own debts. You have nothing to do with it." When I said that you could have heard a pin drop. But he gave it to me. Then I called the Doctor and gave him his money and he receipted me. I never stayed there but one year.

I moved then down to Napel[TR: Possibly Kapel] Slough on Dr. West's place. I wanted to rent but Dr. West wouldn't advance me anything unless he took a mortgage on my place; so I wouldn't stay there. I chartered a car and took my things back to Brinkley at a cost of ten dollars. I stayed around Brinkley all the winter.

While I was at Wheatley, there was a man by the name of Will Smith who married the daughter of Dr. Paster, druggist at Brinkley. Now Jim Smith, poor white trash, attempted to assault Will Thomas' daughter. Negro girl. When Thomas heard it, he hunted Jim with a Winchester. When that got out, Deputy Sheriff arrested Will and they said that he was chained when he was brought to trial. He got away from them somehow and went to Jonesboro. I took my horse and rid seven or eight miles to carry his clothes. Another Nigger who had promised to make a crop when he left had the blood beat out of his back because he didn't do it.

The winter, I worked at the Gin and Black Saw Mills. That spring I pulls up and goes to Brises. That was in the year 1903. I made a crop with old man Wiley Wormley one of the biggest Niggers there. I fell short. George Walker furnished what I had.

Then I left and went back to Brinkley and worked at the Sawmill again. That was in 1904. I went to Jonesboro. I had just money enough to go to Jonesboro, and I had a couple of dollars over. I had never been out before that; so I spent that and didn't get any work. I stayed there three days and nights and didn't get anything to eat. Lived in a box car. Then I went to work with the Cotton Belt.

My boarding mistress decided to go up to fifteen dollars for board. I told her I couldn't pay her fifteen dollars for that month, but would begin next month. She wouldn't have that and got the officers to look for my money so I caught the train and went back to Brinkley and worked on the railroad again from the Cotton Belt to the Rock Island.

I was getting along all right and I done my job, but when the foreman wanted me to work on the roof and I told him if that was all he had for me to do he could pay me off because that was off the ground and I was fraid of falling. He said that I was a good hand and that he hated to lose me.

In March, 4, 1907, I came here (Little Rock) and at first rolled concrete in Niemeyer's at $1.50 a day where the other men were getting from two to two and a half dollars. They quit for more wages and I had to quit with them. Then I worked around till May 24 when I was hired at the Mountain Shops as Engine wiper for about six or eight months, then painted flues for three or four months, then was wood hauler for about thirteen or more years, then took care of the situation with shavings and oil, then stayed in wash room six or seven years until I was retired. I had control of the ice house, too.

IDEAS ABOUT THE PRESENT

Young people are just going back to old Ante-Bellum days. They are going to destruction. They got a way of their own and you can't tell them anything. They don't educate anything but their heads. The heart isn't educated and if my heart is black as my hat, can I do anything for God? The old people are not getting a square deal. Some of them are being moved.

SCHOOLING

I did not get much schooling. Between the time I was old enough to go to school and the time I went to the field, I got a little. I would go to school from July to September, and also about six weeks in January.

They had public school taught by some of the people. I went to a white man once. An old white woman taught there before him. I went to a Negro woman, Old Lady Abbie Lindsay. She lives here now down on State Street. She is about ninety years old. I went to Jube Williams (white), Current Lewis, Abbie Lindsay, and A.G. Mertin. They did n't paas you by grades then. I got through the fourth reader. If you got through, they would go back and carry you through again. They had the old Blue Back Speller. I got ready for the fifth reader but I quit. I had just begun to cipher, in arithmetic, but I had to quit because they could n't spare me out of the field. In fact they put me into the field when I was eight years old, but I managed to go to school until I was about twelve years old or something like that. I never got a year's schooling all put together. My mother was a widow and had five or six children, none of them able or big enough to work but my oldest sister. She raised five of us.

If I had done as she told me, I might have been a good scholar. But I played around and went off with the other children. I learnt way afterwards when I was grown how to write my name. I could work addition and I could work some in multiplication, but I couldn't work division and couldn't work subtraction. Come around any time, specially on Sunday afternoons.

Name of Interviewer: Velma Sample Subject: NEGRO LORE—THE STORY OF CASIE JONES BROWN

Casie Jones Brown was a dearly loved Negro servant. He was known for his loving kindness toward children, both black and white. Lots of the white children would say, "Casie sure is smart" because Casie was a funny and witty old darkie. Casie has a log house close to his master, Mr. Brown. They live on what is called the Brown Plantation. The yard had large old cedars planted all around it. They were planted almost a century ago. The plantation is about six miles from Paragould, [TR: possibly Baragould] Arkansas, where the hills are almost mountains. There have been four generations living in the old house. They have the big sand stone fireplaces. Casie has a spiritual power that makes him see and hear things. He says that sometimes he can hear sweet voices somewhere in his fireplace. In the winter time he does all of his cooking in a big black kettle with three legs on it, or a big iron skillet. And when he first settled there he did not have a stove to cook on except the fireplace. He says the singing that comes from somewhere about the fireplace is God having his angels entertain him in his lonely hours. Casie is 91 years old and has been in that settlement as long as he can remember.

The little white boys and girls like to be entertained by Casie. He tells them stories about the bear and peter rabbit. Also he has subjects for them to ask questions about and he answers them in a clever way. He was kind enough to let me see the list and the answers. He cannot write but he has little kids to write them for him. He cannot read, but they appoint one to read for him, and he has looked at the list so much that he has it memorized.

Casie, what does hat mean or use hat for a subject. "De price ob your hat ain't de medjer ob your brain."

Coat—"Ef your coat tail catch afire don't wait till you kin see de blaze 'fo' you put it out."

Graveyard—"De graveyard is de cheapes' boardin' house."

Mules—"Dar's a fam'ly coolness 'twix' de mule an' de single-tree."

Mad—"It pesters a man dreadful when he git mad an' don' know who to cuss."

Crop—"Buyin' on credit is robbin' next 'er's crop."

Christmas—"Christmas without holiday is like a candle without a wick."

Crawfish—"De crawfish in a hurry look like he tryin' to git dar yastiddy."

Lean houn'—"Lean houn' lead de pack when de rabbit in sight."

Snow Flakes—"Little flakes make de deepes' snow."

Whitewash—"Knot in de plank will show froo de whitewash."

Yardstick—"A short yardstick is a po' thing to fight de debbul wid."

Cotton—"Dirt sho de quickes' on de cleanes' cotton."

Candy—"De candy-pullin' din call louder dan de log-rollin'."

Apple—"De bes' apple float on de top o' 'ligion heaps de half-bushel."

Hoe—"De steel hoe dat laughs at de iron one is like de man dat is shamed of his grand-daddy."

Mule—"A mule kin tote so much goodness in his face dat he don't hab none lef' for his hind legs."

Walks—"Some grabble walks may lead to de jail."

Cow bell—"De cow bell can't keep a secret."

Tree—"Ripe apples make de tree look taller."

Rose—"De red rose don't brag in de dark."

Billy-goat—"De billy-goat gits in his hardes' licks when he looks like he gwine to back out of de fight."

Good luck—"Tis hard for de bes' an' smartes' fokes in de wul' to git 'long widout a little tech o' good luck."

Blind horse—"Blind horse knows when de trough empty."

Wagon—"De noise of de wheels don't medjer de load in de wagon."

Hot—"Las' 'ear's hot spell cools off mighty fast."

Hole—"Little hole in your pocket is wusser'n a big one at de knee."

Tim o' day—"Appetite don't regerlate de time o' day."

Quagmire—"De quagmire don't hang out no sign."

Needle—"One pusson kin th'ead a needle better than two."

Pen—"De pint o' de pin is de easier in' to find."

Turnip—"De green top don't medjer de price o' de turnip."

Dog—"Muzzle on de yard dog unlocks de smokehouse."

EQUAL TO THE EMERGENCY

Hebe: "Unc Isrul, mammy says, hoocume de milk so watery on top in de mornin'."

Patriarch: "Tell you' mammy dat's de bes' sort o' milk, dat's de dew on it, de cows been layin' in de dew."

Hebe: "An' she tell me to ax you what meck it so blue."

Patriarch: "You ax your mammy what meck she so black."

Here are some of Casie's little rhymes that he entertained the neighbor children with:

Look at dat possum in dat holler log. He hidin' he know dis nigger eat possum laik a hog.

Hear dat hoot owl in dat tree. Dat old hoot owl gwine hoot right out at yew.

Rabbit, rabbit, do you know; I can track you in de snow.

One young man lingered at the gate after a long visit, but a lots ob sweethearts do det. His lady love started to cry. He said, "Dear, don't cry; I will come to see you again." But she cried on. "Oh, darling don't cry so; I will come back again, I sure will." Still she cried. At last he said: "Love, did I not tell you that I would soon come again to see you?" And through her tears she replied: "Yes, but I am afraid you will never go; that is what is the matter with me. We must all go."

Uncle Joshua was once asked a great question. It was: "If you had to be blown up which would you choose, to be blown up on the railroad or the steamboat?" "Well," said Uncle Joshua, "I don't want to be blowed up no way; but if I had to be blowed up I would rather be blowed up on de railroad, because, you see, if you is blowed up on de railroad, dar you is, but if you is blowed up on de steamboat, whar is you?"

Casie tells me of some of his superstitions:

If you are the first person a cat looks at after he has licked hisself, you are going to be married.

If you put a kitten under the cover of your bed and leave it until it crawls out by itself, it will never leave home.

If you walk through a place where a horse wallows, you will have a headache.

If a woodpecker raps on the house, someone is going to die.

If an owl screeches, turn the pocket of your apron inside out, tie a knot in your apron string, and he will stop.

If a rabbit runs across the road in front of you, to the left, it is a sign of bad luck; if it goes to the right, it is a sign of good luck.

If you cut a child's finger nails before it is a year old, it will steal when it grows up.

If you put your hand on the head of a dead man, you will never worry about him; he will never haunt you, and you will never fear death.

If the pictures are not turned toward the wall after a death, some other member of the family will die.

If you see a dead man in the mirror, you will be unlucky the rest of your life.

Name of Interviewer: Velma Sample Subject: Slavery Days

THE ATTACK THE YANKEES MADE ON JOHNNIE REAVES PLACE GIVEN BY AUNT ELCIE BROWN

Aunt Elcie Brown (a negro girl age nine years old) was living in the clay hills of Arkansas close to Centerville, and Clinton in Amid County on Johnnie Reeves Place. Johnnie Reeves was old and had a son named Henry L. Reeves who was married. Young Reeves got the news that they were to be attacked by the Yankees at a certain time and he took his family and all the best stock such as horses, cattle, and sheep to a cave in a bluff which was hid from the spy-glasses of the Yankees, by woods all around it. Johnnie Reeves was left to be attacked by the soldiers. He was blind and almost paralyzed. He had to eat dried beef shaved real fine and the negro children fed him. They ate as much of it as he did. Aunt Elcie and her brother fed him most of the time. They would get on each side of him and lead him for a walk most every day. The natives thought they would bluff the soldiers and cut the bridge into and thought that the soldiers would be unable to cross Beavers Creek, but the Yankees was prepared. They had made a long bridge for the soldiers to come marching right over. This bridge was just a mile from Reeves farm. Then the soldiers came they were so many that they could not all come up the big road but part of them came over the hill by the sheeps spring and through the pasture.

All the negroes came out of their shacks and watched them march toward their houses. Elcie and her brother got scared and ran in the house, crawled in bed and thought they were hid, as they had scrutched down in the middle of the bed with the door locked. But the soldiers bursted in and moved the bed from the corner. One stood over the bed and laughed, then asked the other man to look, then threw the covers off of them. He first took her brother by one arm and one leg and stood him on his feet, patted his head and told him not to be afraid, that they would not hurt them. Then took Elcie and stood her up. He reached in a bag lined with fur which was strapped on them and gave them both a stick of candy. Elcie says she thinks that is why she has always liked stick candy. She also says that that day has stood out to her and she can see everything just like it was yesterday. All the negro homes were close together and the soldiers raided them in small bunches. They were kind to the negro children. Wnen they started to the big house where Johnnie Reeves lived all the negro children followed them. When they entered the house Mr. Reeves was sitting by the side of the fire-place and every one that passed him kicked him brutely. They ransacked the place all over and when they got up stairs they kicked out all the window pains and tore off all the window-shutters. They took all the things they wanted out of the house, such as silver-ware, and jewelry. The smoke-house, milk-house and store-house was three separate buildings in a row. The first one they entered was the milk-house. It had seven shelves of milk, cream and butter in it. There was eleven crocks of sweet milk larger than a waterbucket. They had forty gallons of butter milk, and over three gallons of butter in a large flat crock. They also had over five gallons of cream. The Yankee soldiers ate all the butter and cream and set the milk in the yard and ask the negro kids to finish the milk.

They drank it like pigs without a cup, just stuck their heads down and drank like pigs. When they were full the balance of the milk was so dirty it looked like pigs had been in it.

The soldiers entered the next building which was the store-room where they stored rice, flour, sugar, coffee, and such like, and they took what they wanted, then destroyed the rest. Mr. Reeves had just been to town and bought a hogshead of sugar and they took it out and burst it and invited the negro children to help themselves. Elcie says that when the kids all got full there was not a half bushel left. The last raid was the smoke-house where stuffed sausage was hanging by the hundred and hams by the dozens. They didn't leave a thing, took lard and everything. It took over two wagons to hold everything. Then they crossed over to the next place owned by Bill Gunley.

* * * * *

Dr. Levy tells me of his father being partial to the southerners although he lived in Evansville, Indiana, and fought as a Yankee. He was accused of being partial and they would turn over his wagons and cause him trouble. He had fine wagons and sometimes when he would be turning his wagons back up after them being turned over to contrary him, he would curse Gen. Grant and call him that G.D. Old Tobacco spitter. Although Henry Levy seldom did swear as he was French, sometimes they would make him mad and he would do so.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: F. H. Brown 701 Hickory Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 75

[HW: Builds Church and School]

"I was born in Marion County, Mississippi. Columbus is the county-seat. My father's name was Hazard Brown, and my mother's name was Willie Brown. She was a Rankin before she married. My mother was born in Lawrence County, Mississippi, and married father there. My father was born in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. I was born in three feet of the line in Louisiana. I was born in the old slave quarters. The house was just across the line between Mississippi and Louisiana. The lower room was in Louisiana and the other was in Mississippi. There was a three foot hall between the rooms. It was a matter of convenience that I was born in Mississippi. I might have been just as well born in Louisiana. The house was in both states.

"My father's master was Black Bill Warren. Black Bill was just a title they give him. I think that his name was Joe Warren, but they nicknamed him Black Bill, and everybody called him that. My mother belonged to the Rankinses.

"My mother's mother was named Dolly Ware. My father's mother was named Maria. Their papa's father was named Thomas, and I forget my mother's father's name. I know it but I forget it just now. I haven't thought over it for a long time.

"My father when he died was eighty-five years old. He was treated pretty good in slavery time. He did farm work. His mars had about ninety slaves, that is, counting children and all. When I was a boy, I was in those quarters and saw them. I went back there and though it was some time afterward, taught in them. And later on, I preached in them, since I have been a preacher, of course. I have a cousin there now. He is about a hundred years old. He belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"My father lived to see freedom. He has been dead more than twelve years. He died at my home.

"He was so close to the fighting that he could hear the guns and the firing. When they was freed, some white people told him, 'You are just as free as we are.' I was born after the Emancipation proclamation. The proclamation was issued in September and I was born in October. It didn't become effective till January first. So I was born a slave any way you take it.

"The farm my father worked on was on the Pearl River. It was very fertile. It was in Mississippi. A very big road runs beside the farm. The road is called the Big Road. The nigger quarters were across the road on the south side.

"My mother's folks treated her nicely too. Mr. Rankins didn't have any slaves but Mrs. Rankins had some. Her people gave them to her. My grandma who belonged to her had twenty-six children. She got her start off of the slaves her parents gave her, and finally she had about seventy-five. She ran a farm. My mother's work was house woman. She worked in the house. Her mistress was good to her. The overseer couldn't whip the niggers, except in her presence, so that she could see that it wasn't brutal. She didn't allow the women to be whipped at all. When an overseer got rough, she would fire him. Slaves would run away sometimes and stay in the woods if they thought that they would get a whipping for it. But she would send word for them to come on back and they wouldn't be whipped. And she would keep her word about it. The slaves on her place were treated so good that they were called free niggers by the other white people. When they were whipped, they would go to the woods.

"I have heard them speak of the pateroles often. They had to get a pass and then the pateroles wouldn't bother them. They would whip you and beat you if you didn't have a pass. Slavery was an awful low thing. It was a bad system. You had to get a pass to go to see your wife. If you didn't have that pass, they would whip you. The pateroles carried on their work for a good while after slavery was over, and the Civil War had ended.

"I was pretty good when I was a boy. So I never had any trouble then. I was right smart size when I saw the Ku Klux. They would whip men and women that weren't married and were living together. On the first day of January, they would whip men and boys that didn't have a job. They kept the Negroes from voting. They would whip them. They put up notices, 'No niggers to come out to the polls tomorrow.' They would run them off of government land which they had homesteaded. Sometimes they would just persuade them not to vote. A Negro like my father, they would say to him, 'Now, Brown, you are too good to get messed up. Them other niggers 'round here ain't worth nothing, but you are, and we don't want to see you get hurt. So you stay 'way from the polls tomorrow.' And tomorrow, my father would stay away, under the circumstances. They had to depend on the white people for counsel. They didn't know what to do themselves. The other niggers they would threaten them and tell them if they came out they would kill them.

"Right after the war, we farmed on shares. When we made our last share-crop, father farmed on Senator Bilbo's mother's farm on the State line. I nursed Senator Bilbo when he was a baby. Theoda Bilbo. He is the one who says Negroes should be sent to Africa. Then there wouldn't be nobody here to raise people like him. He fell into the mill pond one day and I pulled him out and kept him from drowning. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't be here to say, 'Send all the Negroes to Africa.' If I'd see him right now, he'd give me ten dollars.

"Mrs. Bilbo's first husband was a Crane. He killed himself. He didn't intend to. It was in a horse race. The horse ran away with him and killed him. Then Theoda's father married her. He was a poor man. He married that widow and got up in the world. They had a gin mill, and a grist mill, and a sawmill. They got business from everybody. That was Theoda's daddy—old man Bilbo.

"In 1870, we stayed on Elisha McGhee's farm. We called him Elisha but his name was Elijah. I began to remember them. The next year, we farmed for old man William Bilbo. But we didn't get along so well there because daddy wouldn't let anybody beat him out of anything that was his. That was Theoda's gran'daddy. Then we went to (Mississippi) Miss Crane's. The next year she married Theoda Bilbo's daddy and in 1874, my daddy moved up on his own place at Hurricane Creek. There he built a church and built a school, and I went to the school on our own place. He stayed there till 1880. In 1880, we moved to Holly Springs. That was right after the yellow fever epidemic. I went to school there at Shaw University. I stayed in that school a good while. It's called Rust College now. It's named after the Secretary of the Freedman's Aid Society. Rust was the greatest donor and they named the school after him. I went to the state school in my last year because they would give you a lifetime certificate when you finished there. I mean a lifetime teaching certificate for Mississippi. I finished the course and got the certificate. There is the diploma up there on the wall. J.H. Henderson was the principal and he was one of my teachers too. Henderson was a wonderful man. You know he died out here in the county hospital sometime ago. Sometime I'll tell you all about him. He was a remarkable man. He taught there behind Highgate, a Northern man. I'll tell you all about him sometime.

"I farmed with my father in the early part of my life. When I went to Holly Springs in 1881, I worked for Dr. T.J. Malone, a banker there, and a big farmer—President of the Holly Springs Bank. I worked for him mornings and evenings and slept at home of nights. I would work in vacation times too at whatever I could find to do till I got about able to teach. When I first commenced to teach, I taught in several counties—Lincoln, Simpson, Pike, Marion (the place I went to school), and Copiah. I built the school at Lawrence County. I organized the Folsom High School there. It was named after President Cleveland's wife. I taught there nine years. I married there. My wife's name was Narcissa Davis. She was a teacher and graduated from the same school I did. She lived in Calhoun County. She died in 1896, in Conway.

"I taught school at Conway in Faulkner County, and joined the ministry as a local preacher, in 1896. I moved from there to White County and taught in Searcy one term. Taught at Beebe ten years. Married again in 1898—Annie Day. I taught at Beebe and lived in White County. Then I bought me a home at Higginson, and went into the ministry solely. I left Higginson and taught and pastored seven years at Des Arc. I know practically everybody in Des Arc. I was thinking today about writing Brick Williams. He is the son of old man Williams, the one you know I think. Then I come to what is called Sixteen Section three miles from Galloway and taught there seven years and pastored. I presided too as Elder some of those years—North Little Rock District. Then I went back and pastored there and taught at West Point, Arkansas four years. Then I pastored at Prescott and was on the Magnolia District as Presiding Elder two years. Then I presided over the North Little Rock District again. Pastored St. Luke Circuit in southwest part of Arkansas below Washington. Then I built a church at Jonesboro. I pastored twenty-nine years altogether, built five churches, and have been responsible for five hundred conversions.

"I think the prospects of the country and the race are good. I don't see much dark days ahead. It is just a new era. You are doing something right now I never saw done before in my life. Even when they had the census, I didn't see any colored people taking it.

"I don't get any assistance in the form of money from the government. I have been trying to get it but I can't. Looks like they cut off a lot of them and can't reach it. Won't let me teach school. Say I am too old for WPA teaching. Superannuate me in the church, and say I'm too old to preach, and still I haven't gotten anything from my church since last January. I get some commodities from the state. I belong to the C.M.E. Church. I have lived in this community twenty-five years."

Interviewer's Comment

Hanging on the wall was the old man's diploma from the Mississippi State Normal School for colored persons. It was dated May 30, 1888, and it bore the signatures of J.R. Preston, State Superintendent; E.D. Miller, County Superintendent (both members of the Board of Directors); J.H. Henderson, Principal; Narcissa Hill and Maria Rabb, faculty members.

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: George Brown Route 4; Box 159, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 84

"Yes'm, I was born in slavery times. I was born in 1854. How old does that leave me?

"No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas, born in Alabama.

"Jim Hart was my white folks. Good to me? I'd rather let that alone. Plenty to eat? I'll have to let that alone too. I used to say my old missis was 'Hell a mile.' Her name was Sarah. She was a Williams but she married Jim Hart. They had about a hundred and seventy head, little and big together.

"Me? I was a servant at the house. I didn't do any field work till after surrender.

"Some women was pretty mean and old miss was one of 'em.

"You'll get the truth now—I ain't told you half.

"We lived in Marengo County. The Tombigbee River divided it and Sumter County. The War didn't get down that far. It just got as far as Mobile.

"Oh yes'm, I knowed they was a war gwine on. I'd be waitin' on the table and I'd hear the white folks talkin'. I couldn't keep all I heard.

"I know I heard 'em say General Grant went up in a balloon and counted all the horses and mules they had in Vicksburg.

"I seen them gunboats gwine down the Tombigbee River. And I seen a string of cotton bales as long as from here to there floatin' down the river to Mobile. I reckon they was gettin' it away from the Yankees. You see we was a hundred and fifty miles north of Mobile.

"I wish you'd a caught me with my mind runnin' that way. I could open your eyes.

"They had a overseer named Sothern. One Sunday my mammy slipped off and went to church. Some of 'em told Sothern and he told Miss Sarah. And she had mammy called out and they had a strop 'bout as wide as any hand and had holes in it, and they started whippin' her. I was runnin' around there with my shirt tail full of bricks and I was chunkin' 'em at that overseer. He would a caught me and whipped me too but Tom Kelly—that was old miss' son-in-law—said, 'A calf loves the cow,' so he wouldn't let old miss whip me.

"I come away from Alabama in '75. I lived in Tallulah, Louisiana eight years and the rest of the time I been here in Arkansas.

"I've farmed most of the time. I owned one farm, forty-nine acres, but my boy got into trouble and I had to sell it.

"Then I've been a engineer in sawmills and at gins. I used to be a round man—I could work any place.

"Me? Vote? No, I never did believe in votin'. I couldn't see no sense in it. They was mobbin' and killin' too much for George Brown. I was a preacher—Baptist. I was a ordained preacher. I could marry 'em. Oh Lord, I ain't preached in a long time. I got so I couldn't stand on my feet.

"I been in the Church of God sixty-one years. Never been in any lawsuit or anything like that in my life. I always tried to keep out of trouble.

"I 'member one time I come nearest to gettin' drowned in the Tombigbee River. We boys was in washin' and we got to divin' and I div where it was too deep. When I come up, look like a world of water. A boy in a skiff come and broke right to me. I reckon I was unconscious, I didn't know what. But them boys wasn't unconscious.

"I think the younger generation is mighty bad. There's some exceptions but the general run is bad. I've seen the time you could go to a white man and he would help you but these young white folks, they turn from you."

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: J.N. Brown 3500 West 7th Ave. Pine Bluff, Ark. Age: 79 Occupation: Sells peanuts from wagon

"Yes'm, I was livin' in slavery times—musta been—I was born in 1858, near Natchez, Mississippi—in town.

"Old Daniel Virdin was my first master. I can halfway remember him. Oh Lord, I remember that shootin'. Used to clap my hands—called it foolishness. We kids didn't know no better.

"I was in Camden, Arkansas when we was freed. Colored folks in them days was sold and run. My father was in Camden when we got free—he was sold. My mother was sold too.

"I heared em say they had a good master and mistis. Man what bought em was named Brown. They runned us to Texas durin' the war and then come back here to Camden.

"I never went to school. I was the oldest chile my father had out a sixteen and I had to work. We had a kinda hard time. I stayed in Camden till I was eighteen and then I runned off from my folks and went to Texas. Times was so tight in Arkansas, and a cattleman come there and said they'd give me twenty-five dollars a month in Texas. I thought that would beat just something to eat. I been workin' for the white folks and just gettin' a little grub and not makin' any money.

"In Texas I worked for some good white folks. John Worth Bennet was the man who owned the ranch. I stayed there seven years and saved my money. I was just nacherly a good nigger. That was in Hopkins County, Texas.

"I've got a good memory. That's all I got to study bout is how to take care of the situation. I was livin' there in that country in 1882, fore the Spanish-American War.

"I come back here to Arkansas in 1900. My father was named Nelson Brown. He preached. My mother's name was Sally Brown.

"Long in that time we tried to vote but we didn't know 'zactly what we was doin. I think I voted once or twice, but if a man can't read or write and have to have somebody make out his ticket, he don't know what he's votin', so I just quit tryin' to vote.

"Now about this younger generation, you've asked me a question it's hard for me to answer. With all these nineteenth century niggers, the more education they got, the bigger crooks they is.

"We colored people are livin' under the law, but we don't make no laws. You take a one-armed man and he can't do what a two-armed man can. The colored man in the south is a one-armed man, but of course the colored man can't get along without the white folks. But I've lived in this world long enough to know what the cause is—I know why the colored man is a one-armed man."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Lewis Brown 708 Oak Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 83

"Yes'm my name is Brown—Lewis Brown. Yes'm I lived durin' slavery times. I was born in 1854.

"I been workin' this mornin'. I been diggin' up the ground to bed up some onions. No I don't work every day. Sometimes I feel ailin'—don't feel like doin' nothin'.

"I wasn't big enough to 'member 'bout the war. All I 'member is seein' the soldiers retirin' from the war. They come by my old master's plantation. The Yankees was in front—they was the horsebackers. Then come the wagons and then the southern soldiers comin' along in droves.

"I was born in Arkansas. My mother and father belonged to Dr. Jordan. He was the biggest slaveholder in Arkansas. He was called the 'Nigger Ruler'. If the overseer couldn't make a slave behave, the old doctor went out with a gun and shot him. When the slaves on other plantations couldn't be ruled, they was sold to Dr. Jordan and he ruled 'em or killed 'em.

"I don't 'member much else 'bout my old master but I 'member my old mistress. The last crop she made before freedom, she had two plantations with overseers on 'em and on one plantation they didn't 'low no kind a slave 'cept South Carlinans. But on the other plantation the slaves come from different places.

"After the war we went to Texas and I 'member my old mistress come down there to get her old colored folks to come back to Arkansas. Lots of 'em went back with her. She called herself givin' 'em a home. I don't know what she paid—I never heard a breath of that but she hoped 'em to get back. I didn't go—I stayed in Texas and growed up and married there and then come back to Arkansas in 1882.

"Oh yes'm—the Ku Klux was plentiful after peace. They went about robbin' people.

"Some of the colored folks thought they was better off when they was slaves. They was the ones that had good masters. Some of the masters didn't 'low the overseers to 'buke the slaves and some wouldn't have overseers.

"I never did vote for no President, just for home officers. I don't know what to say 'bout not letting the colored folks vote now. They have to pay taxes and 'spenses and I think they ought to have something to say 'bout things.

"'How did you lose your arm?' It was shot off. I got into a argument with a fellow what owed me twenty-four dollars. He decided to pay me off that way. That was when I was 'bout seventy. He's dead now.

"I think the people is more wickeder now. The devil got more chances than he used to have and the people can't do right if they want to."

Name of interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Humorous Tales of Slavery Days

"I was born in 1854 and 'co'se I wasn't big enough to work much in slavery times, but one thing I did do and that was to tote watermelons for the overseer and pile 'em on the porch.

"I 'member he said if we dropped one and broke it, we'd have to stop right there and eat the whole thing. I know I broke one on purpose so I could eat it and I 'member he made me scrape the rind and drink the juice. I know I eat till I was tired of that watermelon.

"And then there was a lake old master told us to stay out of. If he caught you in it, he'd take you by the shirt collar and your heels and throw you back in.

"I know he nearly drowned me once."

This information given by: Lewis Brown Place of residence: 808 W. Eighth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Occupation: Retired minister Age: 84

Name of interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Subject: Child Rearing Customs of Early Days

"In them days, folks raised one another's chillun. If a child was at your house and misbehaved, you whipped him and sent him home and his mother give him another whippin'.

"And you better not 'spute your parents!"

This information given by: Lewis Brown Place of residence: 802 W. Eighth. Pine Bluff. Arkansas Occupation: None, retired minister Age: 84

STATE—Arkansas NAME OF WORKER—Samuel S. Taylor ADDRESS—Little Rock, Arkansas DATE—December, 1938 SUBJECT—Ex-slave

[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

Circumstances of Interview

1. Name and address of informant—Lewis Brown, 2100 Pulaski Street, Little Rock

2. Date and time of interview--

3. Place of interview—2100 Pulaski Street, Little Hock, Arkansas

4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant--

5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you--

6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.--

Personal History of Informant

NAME AND ADDRESS OF INFORMANT—Lewis Brown, 2100 Pulaski Street, Little Rock.

1. Ancestry—father, Lewis Bronson; mother, Millie Bronson.

2. Place and date of birth—Born April 14, 1855 in Kemper County, Mississippi.

3. Family—Five children.

4. Places lived in, with dates—Lived in Mississippi until the eighties, then moved to Helena, Arkansas. Moved from Helena to Little Rock.

5. Education, with dates--

6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—Farming.

7. Special skills and interests--

8. Community and religious activities—Belongs to Baptist Church.

9. Description of informant--

10. Other points gained in interview—Facts concerning child life, status of colored girls, patrollers, marriage and sex relationships, churches and amusements.

Text of Interview (Unedited)

"I was born in 1855, April 14, in Kemper County, Mississippi, close to Meridian. I drove gin wagons in the time of the war in a horse-power gin. I carried matches and candles down to weigh cotton with in slavery times.

"They had to pick cotton till dark. They had to tote their weight hundred pounds, two pounds, whatever it was down to the weighing place and they had to weigh it. Whatever you lacked of having your weight, you would get a lick for. On down till they called us out for the war, that was the way it was. They were goin' to give my brother fifty lashes but they come and took him to the army, and they didn't git to whip him.

"My father was Lewis Bronson. He come from South Carolina. My mother was stole. The speculators stole her and they brought her to Kemper County, Mississippi, and sold her. My mother's name was Millie. My father's owner was Elijah McCoy. Old Elijah McCoy was the owner, but they didn't take his name. They went back to the old standard mark after the surrender. They went back to the people where they come from, and they changed their names—they changed off of them old names. McCoys was my masters, but my father went back to the name of the people way back over in there in South Carolina, where he come from. I don't know nothin' bout them. He was the father of nine children. He had two wives. One of them he had nine by, and the other one he had none by. So he went back to the one he had the nine children by.

Early Life

"I was ten years old when war was ended. I had to carry matches and candles to the cotton pickers. It would be too dark for them to weigh up. They couldn't see. They had tasks and they would be picking till late to git their tasks done. Matches and candles come from the big house, and I had to bring it down to them. That was two years before the war.

"I wasn't big enough to do nothing else, only drive to the gin. I drove horse-power to the gin.—drove mules to the gin. I would drive the cows out to the pasture too. The milk women would milk them. Lawd, I could not do no milking. I was too small. The milk women would milk them and I would drive the cows one way and the calves another so that they couldn't mix. And at night I would go git them and they would milk them again. The milk women milked them. What would I know bout milkin.

"I never did any playin', 'cept plain marbles and goin' in swimmin'.

Schooling

"The white girls and boys learned us our A-B-C's after the war. They had a free school in Kemper County there. My children I learnt them myself or had it done. You couldn't hardly ever find one in Kemper Country that could spell and go on. They didn't have no time for that. Some few of them learned their A-B-C's before the war. But that is all. They learned what they learned after the war in the free government schools mostly. They would not do nothin' to you if they caught you learnin' in slave time. Sometimes the white children would teach you your A-B-C's.

Status of Colored Girls

"They had mighty mean ways in that country. They would catch young colored girls and whip them and make them do what they wanted. There wasn't but one mean one on our place. He was ordered to go to war and he didn't; so they pressed him. He was the one that promised my brother a whipping. He left like this morning and come back a week from today dead. The rest of them was pretty good. The mean one was Elijah.

Master's Sons

"Old man McCoy had four sons; Elijah, that was the mean one, Redder, Nelson, Clay.

Patrollers

"Sometimes the pateroles would do the devil with you if they caught you out without a pass. You could go anywhere you pleased if you had a pass. But if you didn't have a pass, they'd give you the devil.

Marriage and Sex Relationships

"You could have one wife over here and another one over there if you wanted to. My daddy had two women. And he quit the one that didn't have no children. People weren't no more 'n dogs them days,—weren't as much as dogs.

Mother and Father's Work

"In slavery time, my father worked at the field. Plowed and hoed and made cotton and corn—what else was he goin' to do. My mother was a cook.

Sustenance

"My master fed us and clothed us and give us something to eat. Some of them was hell a mile. Some of them was all kinds of ways. Our people was good. One of them was mean.

Father's Brother

"My father's brother belonged to Elijah. I had an auntie over in there too. I don't know what become of them all. They were all in Kemper county, Mississippi.

Churches

"The white people had churches in slavery times just like they have now. The white people would have service one a month. But like these street cars. White people would be at the front and colored would fill up back. They'll quit that after a while. Sometimes they would have church in the morning for the white folks and church in the evening for the colored. They would baptize you just like they would anybody else.

"I'll tell you what was done in slave time. They'd sing and pray. The white folks would take you to the creek and baptize you like anybody else.

"Sometimes the slaves would be off and have prayer meetings of their own—nothing but colored people there. They soon got out uh that.

"Sometimes they would turn a tub or pot down. That would be when they were making a lot of fuss and didn't want to bother nobody. The white people wouldn't be against the meeting. But they wouldn't want to be disturbed. If you wanted to sing at night and didn't want nobody to hear it, you could just take an old wash pot and turn it down—leave a little space for the air, and nobody could hear it.

Amusement

"The grown folks didn't have much amusement in slavery times. They had banjo, fiddle, melodian, and things like that. There wasn't no baseball in those days. I never seed none. They could dance all they wanted to their way. They danced the dotillions and the waltzes and breakdown steps, all such as that. Pick banjo! U-umph! They would give corn huskins; they would go and shuck corn and shuck so much. Get through shucking, they would give you dinner. Sometimes big rich white people would give dances out in the yard and look at their way of dancing, and doing. Violin players would be colored.

"Have cotton picking too sometimes at night, moonshiney nights. That's when they'd give the cotton pickings. Say you didn't have many hands, then they'd go and send you one hand from this place and one from that place. And so on. Your friends would do all that for you. Between 'em they'd git up a big bunch of hands. Then they'd give the cotton picking, and git your field clared up. They'd give you something to eat and whiskey to drink.

How Freedom Came

"Notice was given to my father that he was free. White people in that country give it to him. I don't know what they said to my father. Then the last gun was fired. I don't know where peace was declared. Notice come how that everybody was free. Told my daddy, 'You're just as free as I am.' Some went back to their daddy's name. Some went back to their master's name. My daddy went back to his old master's name.

Right after the War

"First year after the war, they planted a crop. Didn't raise no cotton during the war, from the time the war started till it ended, they didn't raise no cotton.

"After the war, they give the colored people corn and cotton, one-third and one-fourth. They would haul a load of it up during the war I mean, during the time before the war, and give it to the colored people.

"They had two crops. No cotton in the time of the war, nothing but corn and peas and potatoes and so on. All that went to the white people. But they divided it. They give all so much round. Had a bin for the white and a bin for the colored. The next year they commenced with the third and fourth business—third of the cotton and fourth of the corn. You could have all the peanuts you wanted. You could sell your corn but they would only give you fifty cents for it—fifty cents a bushel.

"My father farmed and sharecropped for a while after the war. He changed from his master's place the second year and went on another place. He farmed all his life. He raised all his children and got wore out and pore. He died in Kemper County, Mississippi. All his children and everything was raised there.

Life Since the War

"I came to Arkansas in the eighties. Come to Helena. I did carpenter and farm work in Helena. I made three crops, one for Phil Maddox, two with Miss Hobbs. I come from Helena here.

"I married in Mississippi in Roland Forks, sixty miles this side of Vicksburg. I had two boys and three girls. Two girls died in Helena. One died in Roland Forks before I come to Helena. Nary one of the boys didn't die.

"I don't do no work now. This rheumatism's got me down. I call that age. If I could work, I couldn't git nothing worth while. These niggers here won't pay you nothing they promise you. My boy's got me to feed as long as I live now. I did a batch of work for the colored people round here in the spring of the year and I ain't got no money for it yit.

"I belong to the Mount Zion Baptist Church; I reckon I do. I got down sick so I couldn't go and I don't know whether they turned me OUT OR NO. I tell you, people don't care nothin about you when you get old or stricken down. They pretend they do, but they don't. My mind is good and I got just as much ambition as I ever had. But I don't have the strength.

"I haven't got but a few more days to lag round in this world. When you get old and stricken, nobody cares, children nor nobody else."

Interviewer: Miss Bailie C. Miller Person interviewed: Mag Brown, Clarksville, Arkansas Age: 85

"I was born in North Carolina and come South with my white folks. They was trying to git out of the war and run right into it. My mother died when I was a baby. I don't remember my mother no more than you do. I left my white folks. When I was 14 years old, we lived out in the country. They was willing to keep me but after the war they was so poor. The girls told me if I could come to town and find work I had better do it. Two of them come nearly to town with me. They told me I was free to come to town and live with the colored folks. I didn't know what it meant to be free. I was just as free as I wanted to be with my white folks. When I got to town I stayed with your aunt awhile then she sent me down to stay with your grandma. A white girl who lived with them, like one of the family, learned me how to cook and iron. I knew how to wash.

"I don't know anything about the present generation. I ain't been able to git out for the last year or two. I think I broke my foot, for I had to go on crutches a long time.

"The white folks always sung but I don't know what they sung. I didn't pay no tention to it then."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mary Brown, Clarendon, Arkansas Age: Born in 1860

"Mama was born in slavery but never sold. Grandma and her husband was sold and brung eleven children to Crystal Springs. They was sold to Mr. Munkilwell. I was born there. Grandma was born in Virginia. Her back was cut all to pieces where she had been beat by her master. Both of them was whooped. He was a hostler and blacksmith.

"When grandma was a young woman she didn't have no children, so her master thought sure she was barren. He sold her to Taylors. Here come 'long eleven children. Taylor sold them. After freedom she had another. He was her onliest boy. That was so funny to hear her tell it. I never could forgit it long as I ever know a thing. Grandma's baby child was seventy-four years old, 'cepting that boy what was a stole child. She died not long ago at Carpendale, Mississippi. I got the letter two weeks ago. But she had been dead a while 'fore they writ to me. Her name was Aunt Miny. She didn't have no children.

"Grandma said the first time she was sold—the first day of July—they put her in a trader yard in Virginia. She was crying and says, 'Take me back to my mama.' An old woman said, 'You are up to be sold.'

"Aunt Helen, her sister, was taking her husband something in the field. They fooled her away from her five little children. Grandma said she never was seen no more. She was much older than grandma. Grandma stayed with her slavery husband till he died.

"Since freedom some people tried to steal my mama. She was a fast runner and could dance. They wanted to make money out of her. They would bet on her races. At Lernet School they took about thirty-six children off in wagons. Never could get trace of them. Never seen nor heard of a one of them again. That was in this state at Lernet School years ago but since freedom.

"I was born during the War soon after Master Munkilwell took mama over. He didn't ever buy her. Mama died young but grandma lived to be over a hundred years old. She told me all I know about real olden times.

"I just looks on in 'mazement at this young generation. They is happy all right. Times not hard for them glib and well as they seems. Times have changed a sight since I was born in this world and still changing. Sometimes it seems like they are all right. Ag'in times is tough on old folks like me. This is all in the Bible—about the times and folks changing."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mattie Brown. Helena. Arkansas Age: 75

"I heard mother say time and ag'in I was a year and two months old the year of the surrender. I was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Mother was a milker and a house woman. Father died when I was a baby. Mother never married. There was three of us to raise. I'm the youngest.

"Sister was the regular little nurse girl for mother's mistress. I don't recollect her name. The baby was sickly and fretful. My sister set and rocked that baby all night long in a homemade cradle. Mother said she'd nod and go on. Mother thought she was too young to have to do that way. Mother stole her away the first year of the Civil War and let her go with some acquaintances of hers. They was colored folks. Mother said she had good owners. They was so good it didn't seem like slavery. The plantation belong to the woman. He was a preacher. He rode a circuit and was gone. They had a colored overseer or foreman like. She wanted a overseer just to be said she had one but he never agreed to it. He was a good man.

"Mother said over in sight on a joining farm the overseers whooped somebody every day and more than that sometimes. She said some of the white men overseers was cruel.

"Mother quilted for people and washed and ironed to raise us. After freedom mother sent for my sister. I don't recollect this but mother said when she heard of freedom she took me in her arms and left. The first I can recollect she was cooking for soldiers at the camps at Montgomery, Alabama. They had several cooks. We lived in our own house and mother washed and ironed for them some too. They paid her well for her work.

"I recollect some of the good eating. We had big white rice and big soda crackers and the best meat I ever et. It was pickled pork. It was preserved in brine and shipped to the soldiers in hogheads (barrels). We lived there till mother died and I can recollect that much. When mother died we had a hard time. I look back now and don't see how we made it through. We washed and ironed mostly and had a mighty little bit to eat and nearly nothing to wear. It was hard times for us three children. I was the baby child. My brother hired out when he could. We stuck together till we all married off."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Molly Brown Age: 90 or over Brinkley, Ark.

One morning early I (Irene Robertson) got off the bus and started up Main Street. I hadn't gone far before I noticed a small form of a woman. She wore men's heavy shoes, an old dark dress and a large fringed woolen shawl; the fringe was well gone and the shawl, once black, was now brown with age. I passed her and looked back into her face. I saw she was a Negro, dark brown. Her face was small with unusually nice features for a woman of her race. She carried a slick, knotted, heavy walking stick—a very nice-looking one. On the other arm was a rectangular split basket with wires run through for a handle and wrapped with a dirty white rag to keep the wire from cutting into her hand or arm.

I stopped and said, "Auntie, could you direct me to Molly Brown's house?"

"I'm her," she replied.

"Well, I want to go home with you."

"What you want to go out there for?"

"I want you to tell me about times when you were a girl," I said.

"I'm not going home yet. I got to get somethin' for dinner."

"Well, you go ahead and I'll follow along."

"Very well," she said.

I window shopped outside, and I noticed she had a box of candy, but it was a 25¢ box and had been opened, so I thought it may be nearly anything just put in the box. The next store she went into was a nice-looking meat market and grocery combined, I followed in behind her. A nice-looking middle-aged man gave her a bundle that was large enough to hold a 50¢ meat roast. It was neatly tied, and the wrapping paper was white, I observed. She thanked him. She turned to me and said, "Give me a nickel."

I said, "I don't have one." Then I said teasingly, "Why you think I have a nickel?"

She said, "You look like it."

I opened my purse and gave her a dime. She went over to the bread and picked up a loaf or two, feeling it. The same man said, "Let that alone."

The old woman slowly went on out. I was amazed at his scolding. Then he said to me, "She begs up and down this street every day, cold or hot, rain or shine, and I have to watch her from the time she enters that door till she leaves. I give her scrap meat," he added.

"How old is she?"

"She was about fifty years old sixty years ago when she came to Brinkley. She is close to a hundred years. People say she has been here since soon after the town started." He remarked, "She won't spend that dime you gave her."

"Well, I will go tell her what to buy with it," I replied.

I hurried out lest I loose her. She had gained time on me and was crossing the Cotton Belt Ry. tracks. I caught up with her before she went into a small country grocery store on #70 highway. She had passed several Negro stores, restaurants, etc, "I want a nickel's worth of meal, please, sir."

I said, "Auntie, buy a dime's worth of meal."

"I don't want but a nickel's worth." The man handed it to her to put in the basket. "Give me a piece candy." The merchant gave her a nice hard stick. She broke it half in to and offered me a piece.

I said, "No, thank you, Auntie." She really wanted me to have it, but I refused it.

She blowed her nose on her soiled old white underskirt. She wormed and went on out.

I asked the merchant "How old is she?"

"Bless her heart, I expect she is ninety years old or more. I give her some hard candy every time she comes in here. I give her a lot of things. She spends her money with me."

Then I asked if she drew an Old Age Pension.

He said, "I think she does, but that is about 30¢ and it runs out before she gets another one. She begs a great deal."

I lagged behind. The way she made her way across the Broadway of America made me scringe. I crossed and caught up with her as she turned off to a path between a garage and blacksmith shop.

I said, "Auntie, let me take your basket." She refused me. I said, "May I carry your meal or your meat?"

"I don't know you." she said shortly.

A jolly man at the side of the garage heard me. I said, "I'm all right, am I not" to the man.

He said, "Aunt Molly, let her help you home. She is all right. I'm sure."

I followed the path ahead of her. When we turned off across a grassy mesa the old woman said, "Here," and handed over her basket. I carried it. When we got to her house across a section of hay land at least a mile from town, she said, "Push that door open and go to the fire."

An old Negro man, not her husband and no relation, got a very respectable rocking chair for me. He had a good fire in the fireplace. The old woman sat on a tall footstool. She was so cold.

She said, "Bring me some water, please."

A young yellow boy stepped out and gave her a cup of water. She drank it all. She put the meat bones and scrap meat on the coals in an iron pot in some water. She had the boy scald the meal, sprinkle salt in it and add a little cold water to it. He put it in an iron pan and put a heavy iron lid over it. The kettle was iron. The boy set it aside and put the bread on hot embers. She sat down and said, "I'm hungry."

I said, "Auntie, what have you in that box?"

She reached to her basket, untied some coins from the corner of the soiled rag—three pennies and a nickel. She untied her ragged hose—she wore two pairs—tied above the knee with a string, and slipped the money to the foot and in her heavy shoes. It looked safe. Then the old Negro man came in with an armfull of scrub wood and placed it by the fireplace on the floor.

He said, "The Government sent me here to live and take care of Aunt Molly. She been sick. I build her fires, and me and that boy wait on her."

I asked, "Is the boy kin".

He said, "No'm, she's all alone."

He went away and the boy went away. The old woman called them and offered them candy. She had twelve hard pieces of whitish, stale chocolate candy in the box. The boy refused and went away, but the old man took three pieces. I observed it well, when she passed it to me, for worms. I refused it. It seemed free from bugs though. She ate greedily and the old man went away.

We were alone and she was warm. She talked freely till the old Negro man returned at one o'clock for dinner. Notwithstanding the fact the meal hadn't been sifted and the meat not washed, it looked so brown and nice in two pones and the meat smelled so good I left hurriedly before I weakened, for I was getting hungry from the aroma.

"I was born at Edgefield County, South Carolina, and lived there till after I married."

"Did you have a wedding?"

"I sure did."

"Tell me about it."

"I married at home, at night, had a supper, had a nice dance."

"You did?"

"I did."

"Did a colored man marry you?"

"Colored preacher—Jim Woods."

"Did he say the ceremony?"

"He read it out of a little book."

"Did you have a nice supper?"

"Course I did! White folks helped fix my weddin' supper. Had turkey, chickens, baked shoat, pies and cake—a table piled up full. Mama helped cook it. It was all cooked on fireplace.

"How were you dressed?"

"Dressed like folks dressed to marry."

"How was that?"

"I wore three or four starched underskirts trimmed in ruffles and a white dress over em. I wore a long lacy vail of net."

"Did you go away?"

"I lived close to my ma and always lived close bout her. I was called a first class lady then."

"You were."

"My parents name Tempy Harris and Albert Harris. She was a cook. He was a farmer. They had five children. The reason I come to Arkansas was cause brother Albert and Caroline come here and kept writin' for us to come. My folks belong to the Harrises. I don't know nothin' bout em—been too long—and I never fooled round their houses. Some my folks belong to the Joneses. They kinfolks of the Harrises.

"No, I never saw no one sold nor hung neither.

"Remember grandpa. His daddy was a white man. His wife was a black woman. Mama was a brown woman like I is.

"I ain't had narry child. My mother died here in this house. Way me an my husband paid for the house, he farmed for Jim Black and Mr. Gunn. I cooked for Jim Woodfin. Then I run a roomin' house till four years ago. Four years ago I went to South Carolina to see my auntie. Her name Julia. They all had more 'n I had. She'd dead now. All of em dead bout it. She was a light woman—Julia. Her pa was a white man; her ma a light woman. Julia considered wealthy.

"I don't know nothin' bout freedom. I seen the soldiers. I seen both kinds. The white folks was good to us. We stayed on. Then we went to Albany, Georgia. We lived there a long time—lived in Florida a long time, then come here.

"The Joneses and Harrises had two or three families all I know. They didn't have no big sight of land. They was good to us. I picked up chips, put em in the boxes. Picked em up in my dress, course; I fetched up water. We had rocked wells and springs, too. We lived with man named Holman in Georgia. We farmed. I used to be called a smart woman, till I done got not able. My grandpa was a white man; mama's pa.

"What I been doin' from 1864-1937? What ain't I done! Farmin', I told you. Buildin' fences was common. Feedin' hogs, milkin' cows, churnin'. We raised hogs and cows and kept somethin' to eat at home. I knit sox. I spin. I never weaved. Folks wore clothes then. They don't wear none now. Pieced quilts. Could I sew? Course I did! Got a machine there now. (pointed to an old one.)

"I never seen no Ku Klux. I hid if they was about. I sure did hear bout em. They didn't never come on our place.

"I told you I never knowed when freedom come on.

"I went to school in South Carolina. I went a little four or five years. I could read, spell, cipher on a slate. Course I learned to write. Course I got whoopins; got a heap o' whoopins. People tended to childern then. What kind books did we have? I read and spelled out of the Blue Back Speller. We had numbers on our slates. The teacher set us copies. We wrote with soapstone. Some teachers white and some colored.

"Well, course I got a Bible. (disgusted at the question). I go to church and preachin' every Sunday. Yes. ma'am, now.

"I don't study votin'. I don't vote. (disgusted). I reckon my husband and pa did vote. I ain't voted.

"Course I go to town. I go to keep from gettin' hungry.

"Me and this old man get demodities and I get some money.

"I told you I don't bother young folks business. I thought I told you I don't. If I young I could raise somethin' at home that the reason I go hungry. I give down. I know I do get hungry.

"One thing I didn't tell you. I made tallow candles when I was a young woman.

"I don't know nothin' bout that Civil War."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Peter Brown. Helena, Arkansas Age: 86

"I was born on the Woodlawn place. It was owned by David and Ann Hunt. I was born a slave boy. Master Hunt had two sons and one girl. Bigy and Dunbar was the boys' names. Annie was the girl's name.

"My parents' names was Jane and William Brown. Papa said he was a little shirt tail boy when the stars fell. Grandma Sofa and Grandpa Peter Bane lived on the same place. I'm named after him. My papa come from Tennessee to Mississippi. I never heard ma say where she come from.

"My remembrance of slavery is not at tall favorable. I heard the master and overseers whooping the slaves b'fore day. They had stakes fixed in the ground and tied them down on their stomachs stretched out and they beat them with a bull whoop (cowhide woven). They would break the blisters on them with white oak paddles that had holes in it so it would suck. They be saying, 'Oh pray, master.' He'd say, 'Better pray fer yourself.' I heard that going on when I was a child morning after morning. I wasn't big enough to go to the field. I didn't have a hard time then. Ma had to work when she wasn't able. Pa stole her out and one night a small panther smelled them and come on a log up over where they slept in a canebrake. Pa killed it with a bowie knife. Ma had a baby out there in the canebrake. Pa had stole her out. They went back and they never made her work no more. She was a fast breeder; she had three sets of twins. They told him if he would stay out of the woods they wouldn't make her work no more, take care of her children. They prized fast breeders. They would come to see her and bring her things then. She had ten children, three pairs of twins. Jonas and Sofa, Peter and Alice, Isaac and Jacob.

"When I was fifteen years old, mother said, 'Peter, you are fifteen years old today; you was born March 1, 1852.' She told me that two or three times and I kept up wid it. I am glad I did; she died right after that.

"Ma and pa et dinner, well as could be. Took cholera, was dead at twelve o'clock that night. It was on Monday. Ike and Jake took it. They got over it. I waited on the little things. One of them said, 'Peter, I'm hungry.' I broiled some meat, made a ash cake and put the meat in where I split the ash cake. He et it and went to sleep. He started mending. Sister come and got the children and took them to Lake Providence. I fell in the hands then of some cruel people. They had a doctor named Dr. Coleman come to see ma and pa. He said, 'Don't eat no fruit, no vegetables.' He said, 'Eat meat and bread.' I et green plums and peaches like a boy fifteen years old then would do. I never did have cholera. A boy fifteen years old didn't know as much as boys do now that age. The master died b'fore the cholera disease come on. We had moved from the hill place to a place in the bottoms. It was on the same place. None of his family hod cholera but neighbors had it. We buried ma and pa on the neighbor's place. We had kin folks on the Harris place. While we was at the graveyard word come to dig two or three more graves.

"Master's house was set on fire, the smokehouse emptied, the gin burned and the cotton. The mules was drove out of the lot. That turned me ag'in' the Yankees. We helped raise that meat they stole. They left us to starve and fed their fat selves on what was our living. I do not believe in parts of slavery. That whooping was cruel, but I know that the white man helped the slave in ways. The slaves was worked too hard. Men was no better than they are now.

"My owner had two fine black horses name Night and Shade. Clem was a white driver. We lived close to Fiat where they had horse races. He told Clem to get Night ready to win some money. He told Clem not to let nobody have their hand on the horse. Clem slept in the stable with the horse. They had three horses on the track. They made three rounds. Night lost three times, but on Friday Night come in and won the money. He made two or three thousand dollars and paid Clem. I never heard how much.

Freedom

"Some men come to our house searching for arms. We had a chest. They threw things winding. Said it was freedom. We didn't think much of such freedom. Had to take it. We didn't have no arms in the house. We never seen free times and didn't know what to look for nohow. We never felt times as good. We moved to the bottoms and I lost my parents.

"I fell in the hands of some mean people. They worked me on the frozen ground barefooted. My feet frostbit. I wore a shirt dress and a britches leg cap on my head and ears. I had no shoes, no underwear. I slept on a bed made in the corner of a room called a bunk. It had bagging over straw and I covered with bagging. Aunt July (Julie) and Uncle Mass Harris come for me. Sister brought my horse pa left for me. They took me from, them folks to stay at Mr. W.C. Winters. He was good to me. He give me fifty dollars and fed me and my horse. He give me good clothes and a house in his yard. I was hungry. He fattened me and my horse both.

"They broke the Ku Klux up by putting grapevines across the roads. I know about that? I never seen one of them in my life.

"Election days years gone by was big times. I did vote. I voted regular a long time. The last President I voted for was Wilson.

"I farmed and worked on steamboats on the Mississippi River. I was what they called rousterbout. I loaded and unloaded freight, I worked on the Choctaw, Jane White, Kate Adams, and other little boats a few days at a time. Kate Adams burnt at Moons Landing. I stopped off here at Helena for Christmas. Some people got drowned and some burned to death. The mud clerk got lost. He went in and got two bags of silver money, put them in his pockets. The stave plank broke and he went down and never come up. He was at the shore nearly but nobody knew he had that silver in his pockets. He never come up and he drowned. People seen him go in but the others swum out. He never come up. They missed him and found him dead and the two bags of silver. I was due to be on there but I wanted to spend Christmas with grandma and my wife. The Choctaw carried ten thousand bales of cotton at times. I worked at the oil mill sixteen or seventeen years. I night watched on the transfer twenty-two years. I come to Helena when I was thirty years old. I'm eighty-six now. The worst thing I ever done was drink whiskey some. I done quit it. I have asthma. The doctors say whiskey is bad on that disease. I don't tetch it now.

"I think the present generation is crazy. I wish I had the chance they have now. The present times is getting better. I ask the Lord to spare me to be one hundred years old. I'm strong in the faith. I pray every day. He will open the way. The times have changed in my life."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: William Brown, Hazen, Arkansas Age: 67

I was born in Virginia but I was born after slavery. I heard my folks talk a heap about oldern times. The way I come here was Dr. Hill brought bout 75 families down to Mississippi to work on farms. I come to Deer Creek close to Sunflower, Mississippi. I lived there 11 years and I drifted to Arkansas.

I don't remember if they was in any uprisings or not. If they was any rebellion cept the big rebellion I don't recall it. My whole families was in de heat of the war.

My mother and father's owner was John Smith. I recollects hearin them talk bout him well as if it was yesterday—we worked on McFowell place close to Petersburg, Virginia when I was little. Then I worked for Miss Bessie and Mr. John Stewart last fore I come with Dr. Hill. I had lived up there but he come and settled down in Mississippi.

The first place I worked on in Arkansas was the John Reeds bout 3 miles from Danville. I stayed there 3 years. My folks stayed on there but I rambled to Little Rock. I worked with Mr. L.C. Merrill. I milked cows and cut grass, fed cows. He has a automobile company in Little Rock now. I farmed bout all my life. Now I don't own nothing. I stays at my daughters. I been married twice. Both my wives dead.

The times change so much I don't know whether they any better or not. The black race ain't never had nuthin—some few gets a little headway once in a while.

I used to vote some—didn't care nuthin bout it much. Never seed no good come of it. Heap of them vote tickets like somebody tell em or don't know how dey vote.

The young generations better off than the old folks now. The things change so fast I don't know how they will get by.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: William Brown 409 W. Twenty-Fifth Street North Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 78

[HW: U.S. Dictatorship Predicted]

"I was born in Arkansas in Cross County at the foot of Crowley's Ridge on the east side of the Ridge and just about twelve miles from Old Wittsburg, on May 3, 1861. I got the date from my mother. She kept dates by the old family Bible. I don't know where she got her learning. She had a knowledge of reading. I am about her sixth child. She was the mother of thirteen.

"My mother's master was named Bill Neely. Her mistress was named Mag Neely.

"My mother was one of the leading plow hands on Bill Neely's farm. She had a old mule named Jane. When the Yankees would come down, Bill Neely and all his friends would leave home. They would leave when they would hear the cannon, because they said that meant the Yankees were coming. When Neely went away, he would carry my mother to do his cooking.